Thursday, January 19, 2012

Trike update

Sorry for the lack of posts lately. Life has been a bit hectic and the trike was off the road for a while after I had some issues with the steering. It was all a bit technical but the part of the trike frame that interacts with the pivot point / headset under the cargo box was slightly worn away. Simon from Cycle Surgery helped diagnose the problem and after discussions with Peter from PSBikes a new frame was supplied by him and has now been installed. Christiania in Denmark say they have never seen one of their trikes have this issue before so all should now be good - probably just a one off manufacturing issue with my frame. Indeed a google search turns up no reports of anything similar ever happening to anyone else. As always great to see after sales support from PSBikes and I couldn't have got it fixed without my great LBS!

Original handlebar - all in one piece with lots of curves
When the new frame was dropped off by Peter he had a new trike in his van and I noticed the handlebars were higher then mine. Apparently they now come this way as standard and as an added bonus the handlebar splits in two to make it easier to install brake levers, gear shifters and all the other gadgets people like me put on their handlebars. As you can see from this old photo of my trike, previously anything that needed to be 'slid' onto the handlebar could only be done by removing the entire bar and sliding it from the bottom, over the drink bottle mount points, around a few corners and over the hand grips. I remember the trouble we had getting the throttle around this obstacle course - it was almost as hard as getting the motor itself on! So I took the opportunity to order the higher set of handlebars and installed them whilst also switching over to the new frame (with help from Simon of course). I find it a lot more comfortable to ride now and making changes to items on the handlebar will be a lot easier in future as the bar splits in two about 3/4 of the way along the top.

New handlebar mounting point for lights
Another new item from Peter is a headlight mount that attaches to the front of the box after drilling a small hole through it. Positioning bicycle lights on the handlebars is obviously not much good on this type of trike as it would just illuminate the back of the kid's heads (hence my current helmet mounted light). This new mount from Christiania screws through the front of the box and basically adds a small 'handlebar' where any standard bicycle light can be positioned. I am thinking of obtaining one that can run off the motor battery so am researching a few options for this.

And my youngest is happy with this new piece of equipment below that he spied on the trike Peter had in his van. A bit florally for my tastes but hey whatever keeps the kids happy and it does spin very well in the breeze!
Every kid should have one on their bike!